By Joseph P. Linck, Jr.
From: Inland Port
Feb., 2012 issue
Some good folks in Houston want to build a liquid products pipeline from Pittsburgh to CapeGirardeau, Missouri.
Why?
Someone needs to tell these oil tycoons that rivers already go there. This new 595-mile pipeline isestimated to cost $1.3 billion dollars. God gave us the Ohio and Mi
ssissippi rivers for free.
We, and the Indians before us, have been using them to transport cargoes for centuries. Why try and duplicate the Ohio River?
Pipelines are restricted to one destination and supply source, and are very expensive, long-term investments ($1.3B). So why build a new river, when we already have a free one?
Barges are so versatile that they can adjust to the ebbs and flows of a new oil field. If production drops off a bit, just cancel a few barges. A pipeline is what it is. It cannot adjust. Barges are not restricted to one single customer either, and can sail and deliver their their product anywhere on
the USA’s 25,000-mile river system.
River tank barges are not restricted to one commodity, and can be used to do many other things in case production is erratic.
Most refineries are on the water, somewhere; Chicago, Mobile, New Orleans, Houston, Corpus Christi, etc. Barges can even get to Mexico’s front door, via the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway at the Port of Brownsville,Texas, which already supplies Mexico with millions of barrels of gasoline, diesel, lube oils, and many petro chemicals.roduct anywhere on the USA’s 25,000-mile river system.
A Pittsburgh-to-Cape Girardeau, Missouri, run would require four 20,000/bbl barges per day to handle the 80,000 bbls/day planned, which would take perhaps 84 new barges, each on a three-week round trip.
At $2 million for a new barge, that’s far cheaper than $1.3 billion they will spend to build this dedicated, single-commodity, single-market,single-use pipeline. In addition, barges are available today, for hire. They require no investment in new interstate environ
mental permits from the many states involved, and do not have to wait the years it will take to complete this megaconstruction project.
These “wet” natural gas fields are located up and down the navigable Ohio, Monongahela, and Allegheny rivers, which already spiderweb this part of Appalachia. This means barges are more flexible, and can reach these various wet gas fields scattered throughout West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
That,of course, will eliminate the need for a spiderweb of ever more short pipelines, and thousands of trucks, to hook into and feed this one big one. Just build short feeder lines, to the closest river bank.
Another big positive for barges is that clean products like gasoline and diesel from St. Louis area refineries, Chicago, or even Houston or Corpus Christi, could be back hauled on these same barges. And that just might drop th eprice of these important commodities everywhere in the upper Ohio River valley.
Perhaps we should all rethink the use of our God-given, 25,000 mile river system. It provides access to a great variety of different customers and markets. It is as relevant for us today as it was for our Indian ancestors.
(Joseph P. Linck, Jr., is a retired commodities trader and former Director of the Port of Brownsville. Through his NAFTA Marine Company and periodic email releases, he urges America’s inland waterways industry to capitalize on business opportunities with Mexico.
Email: naftamarine@aol.com.)
1 comment:
too cool
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